A Sad Farewell
by Kiwigurlie11
Summary: Rory survives a horrible accident...but can she survive without her mother? Rated PG-13 for certain things. And of course theres a bit of Tristin/Rory chemistry, but not enough to take away from the real heart of the story. PLEASE R/R!!!!!


  
  
"So, do you think this mall trip was worth while?" Asked Lorelei as Rory turned up the radio in the car.  
"Five sales in one mall trip! I think we definately did okay!" She replied, waving a shopping bag in frount of her face. Lorelei laughed and turned back to the highway.  
"So, how are things with you and Dean?" She asked.  
"Great! He's taking me out for our NEW three month aniversary next week!"  
"Didn't you already have one of those...oh, three months ago?"  
"Yes, but then we broke up. If we didn't break up, it would be a six month aniversary, but we got back together and you have to restart the clocks when that happens."  
"Oh. I see." said Lorelei, laughing. Rory joined in.   
Suddenly, there was a screaming of a truck horn. "Mom, watch out!" Screamed Rory. Lorelei swerved the car to the left, but it wasn't out of the way of the truck. The last thing that Rory remembers is the mind-shattering impact of the truck into the little car.  
  
Rory's eyes opened slowly. She was staring up at a bright white ceiling. She could hear a soft sobbing from next to her. Where am I? she wondered frantically. She realised someone was holding her hand. She looked to the opposite side of her, her other hand was attached to an IV. Oh my God. She thought. The accident. She remembered. There was an accident. She turned to the person holding her hand, thinking it must be her mom, she must have recovered from the...crash?...faster. that must be it.  
She almost jumped with surprise when she saw who it really was. Tristian. She weakly tried to pull her hand away. Where was Dean? Where was her mom?  
"Rory! You're awake!" He said with red eyes. He was crying?  
"Tristian...Where's...Mom...Dean..." The words wouldn't come out.   
"Oh my...oh Rory...I'm so sorry...Why do I have to be the one to tell you this?" He rubbed his temple and closed his eyes. Then he looked up and said, "I'm afraid...there's double bad news."  
"What?" She sat up in the shaky hospital bed. It took out all her strength and she slumped back down.  
"Well, you have been in a coma for about three weeks."  
"Three weeks? I--it feels like everything just happened yesterday...it couldn't be three weeks!" Tristian took her hand again. She stared down at it, "What happened." she demanded.  
"Dean...he...he's going out with Paris."  
Her eyes opened in horror. "What?! Dean doesn't even GO to Chilton! How the hell could he have met Paris?!"  
"I--I don't know. I think it had something to do with tutoring for math...I just walked in on them making out in the library."  
"Oh my god. How could he? Things were going so well...our three month aniversary was only days away! How could he! Oh my god!" She started to tremble. Tristian held her and stroked her hair.  
"It's okay. He felt really bad when he found out what happened to you...but Paris isn't about to let him go."  
"Stop it!" she shrieked, "I want my mother, I have to talk to her! She'll know what to do, get away from me! Bring me my mother!" She sobbed.  
"Rory..." She looked up, there were tears in his eyes.   
"No." She said flatly, "no. She's not..."  
"She didn't make it, Rory."   
"No! No no no no no!" She screamed. Her cries echoing off the halls.   
"I'm so sorry. I wish I didn't have to be the one to tell you this. I'm so so sorry."  
"She can't be dead! She just can't be!" Rory fell off the other side of the bed in an effort to break away from Tristian. She laid there, sobbing and shaking. Tristian ran to get a nurse.  
"I want my...I want my mom...mom...mommy? I want my mommy!" She wailed.  
  
"Where are we going? This isn't the way to my house!" She asked Gribbs, her Grandparent's limo driver.  
"I have been given instructions to bring you to your grandparent's house." He replied.  
"No, they said they'd bring me HOME. That is not home."  
"No, that house has already been sold. They moved all your things to their estate. You can't live at your old house alone. And anyway, they are now your legal guardians. Your mother made it very clear you were not to live with your father."   
Rory said nothing. The limo pulled into the large driveway. On the porch, her grandparents were there to greet her.   
"Rory! We're so glad your okay!" Said her grandmother, embracing her in a hug.   
"You didn't tell me I was going to live here." she whispered.  
"Oh Rory...We were going to-"  
"Nevermind. I need to be alone right now. I know the way to my room." And she pushed past her to the door.  
She almost had a heart attack when she saw her room. It was EXACTLY like the one she used to have. At her house. Before the accident. Before...she collapsed onto the bed. No, can't think about that now. She fell asleep.  
  
"Hey, I know your not a morning person, but wake up!"  
She opened an eye to see Lorelei looking down at her.  
"Mom? Is that really you?"  
"Yup. Who were you expecting? Christmas isnt for another 5 months, so I know you didn't think I was Santa."  
She jumped up and gave her a hug, "Mom, I had...the worst dream..."  
"Oooh, I hate those. Was it a falling dream?"  
"No, I dreampt that you...that you...died."  
"Me? Dead? Nah. I'm too stubborn to die."  
Rory laughed. "Of course." She said getting up.  
"Now get moving lazy bones, you'll be late for school! I'll be downstairs making coffe if you need me."  
Rory smiled and pulled on her Chilton blouse. When her head poked through the top she was lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling. It was just a dream. She sat up and looked around the room. She was really gone. That thought made Rory start to cry all over again.  
  
Rory's next few weeks at Chilton were horrible. Paris seemed to be ten times as horrible to her, not being sympathetic in the least to Rory's "situation". Rory lost her self-confidence, and was unable to fight back. This envoked Paris to tease her even more. She talked loudly of her plans with Dean, and what they planned to DO. And worst of all, she got all of the other girls, even some of the boys, to completely ignore Rory.   
Rory's perfect grades started to slip. She was failing almost every subject. Her teachers tried to talk to her, the few friends she had at Chilton tried to comfort her, but she would brush them off. Lunch periods were spent in the Bathroom crying. But this time, it wasn't because of the loss of her mother, it was everything.  
She looked into the mirror of her bathroom. The one difference between her new room and her old room was the joint bathroom she had. She stared into her reflection. She looked small and sullen, just a shell of a human being. She hurt. She was completely in pain on the inside.   
Before she knew what she was doing, she opened the cabnet. She pulled out a bottle of asprin.  
"Got to make the pain stop." she said in a voice that wasn't hers, it was somewhat robotic and false. What am I doing? Thought one part of her mind, Curing the pain. thought another. Asprin made pain go away. But this was a big pain, would the whole bottle be enough? It was only half full, but it was enough. It had to be.  
"One, two, three..." she hummed gleefully. She poured the bottle onto her bed and counted each pill. 56 total pills. She started to pop them into her mouth, one by one. By the tenth pill her mouth was dry from all the swallowing, but she continued to swallow them. The dryness of them going down her throat just added to the suspense. When she was done she laid down on her bed. Her mind started to swirl. There was pain everywhere now, not just on the inside, but physically too. There was a ringing in her ears.  
The ringing continued. The phone? She reached for it and mumbled a hello.  
"Rory?" said a confused Tristian. Was she drunk? He wondered.  
"Tristian, go away. I'm doing this." She mumbled in slurred speech.  
"Doing what?" He said. He was scared now. No, terrified. What had she done to herself?   
"Asprin. Just took some medicine. I'm not gonna hurt anymore."  
"Asprin? Rory! How much asprin???" Suicide? He knew she was having a hard time, and he had tried to get people to stop making fun of her, to not listen to Paris, but it didn't work. He didn't have many classes with her, and whenever he did get to talk to her she'd scream at him to go away. He knew she was pretty messed up because of her mother dying, but he didn't think she would ever commit suicide.  
"No more hurt..." she hummed and hung up the phone. She closed her eyes. There was more pain now, but soon, very, very soon...it would all be gone. all she had to do was wait. As the world closed in around her, the blanket of darkness covered her and she waited for it all to end.  
  
She was in a stone room. It was all gray and drab. Where am I? she wondered, her mind back to it's usual state. Then she remembered, she had commited suicide. The hurt was gone...was she dead? "Helloooo? Can anyone heeeeear me?" She called. There was dead silence. not even an echo. Suddenly, from behind her,  
"Lorelei Gilmore, what the hell have you gotten yorself into?" Said a familiar voice. Rory turned to see her mother standing there, dressed in beautiful white.  
"Mom!" She cried, and ran to her, to give her a hug.  
Lorelei pushed her away. "No, I'm not here for you to get all gushy gushy. I'm here to tell you that you did somethingvery, very, wrong. I'm ashamed of you."  
"I--I couldn't help it! Everything was so horrible! I had to make it end!" She cried, falling to the floor.  
"But you didn't do anything to make it stop. You just sat by and let it happen. Why?"  
"I don't know. It's just...mom, you were my strength. You always knew just what to say to make me feel better, and that made me who I was. Without you to guide me I'm just lost."  
"That's not an excuse. You would have had to give me up sooner or later. Every baby bird leaves the nest sometime, and has to be out on their own. You just had to leave a little earlier." Lorelei knelt beside the sobbing Rory.  
"But why? And why did you have to go?" It didn't seem fair, her and her mother had one of those "special" relationships, very few were as lucky to have a mother-daughter relationship like that.  
"God believed you were ready. You didn't need me anymore. But see what you've done now? This, death, it's not what your ready for. There were so many wonderful things ahead of you, and you threw them all away."  
"But I wasn't ready!" She screamed.  
"Who are you? You are not my Rory. My namesake. God took me because he needed me here, but you, you didn't need me. Don't you understand? You are so special that you did not need me to guide you anymore, you could guide yourself. God saw that and gave you that oppritunity. You should have taken it."  
Rory stood up. She was in a white gown that matched her mother's now. "What can I do? It's too late." she said.  
"No, it's never too late." she said smiling. She gave her daughter a hug.  
"What do you mean?" Rory asked, returning the hug. It was so nice to feel that again, after believing her mother was gone forever.  
"Everyone gets a second chance. And here's yours. You have two options." The top of the stone room dissapeared and revealed a shining portal of white, with creamy clouds and a clear blue sky. Rory could see fields of daisies and tall, snowy mountains. She could also see a bright, shining sun, and shimmering lakes.  
"It's beautiful," Rory awed. And she was amazed to find that her and her mother both had beautiful white wings. She tried to move them, and she could.  
"Behind door number one," Lorelei said, "there is an eternity of beauty and peace. No pain, no obsticles, no worries, and no problems. But..." she paused, "you have to deal with the eternity of wondering what could have been." Rory stared into the beautiful landscape.  
"And," Lorelei continued, "behind door number 2..." the bottom of the room fell away, leaving her and Rory floating in midair. That portal was showing bits and pieces of Rory's memories. Memories of her and Dean, the time her and Tristian kissed, having coffe at Luke's with her mother, a beach trip, school at Chilton.  
"There's Earth. Your life. It will be hard, I guarentee you. There will be many hurdles you have to jump over, many paths you have to choose. There will be heartbreak and heartache, and pain and sorrow. But along with the hard times, there will be wonderful times. Kisses, birthdays, vacations, cake, puppies, sunshine, rainbows, oprotuinities, and many other wonderful things. You will grow and learn and become a beautiful woman that has the world at her fingertips."  
"But I'd have to do it without you by my side." Rory whispered.  
"Oh honey," Lorelei said, hugging her again, "those who die are never really gone. I'll be with you every second. You can count on it."  
"Oh mom, I'm going to miss you so much!" She cried. Her tears soaking into the silk of Lorelei's dress.  
"So you've made your decision?" Asked Lorelei.  
"Yes."  
"So this is goodbye."  
"I love you, Mom."  
"I'll always love you, Rory."  
"Goodbye." She said, a tear dripping silently down her cheek.  
"Farewell." Said Lorelei, smiling with pride.  
  
  
Rory opened her eyes. She was looking out the window of a sunny sky. A rainbow standing out against the clear blue. Thats funny, thought Rory. Don't rainbows only come out after a storm?  
"Rory? Are you awake?" It was Tristian.  
"Yeah. I am." She noticed his eyes were red again. He had been crying.  
"Oh thank god." He grabbed her up in a hug. "I thought I had lost you, I thought you were really gone!" She returned the hug willingly as he continued to talk with that sobbing sound. "Last night, you were dead. The doctors said you had died! There was no heartbeat, no breathing. You had died! They kept trying and trying to bring you back. Your grandfather ordered them not to give up, I was crying, your grandmother couldn't speak. Then, almost ten minutes later, you came back to us. The doctor said he got a heartbeat. Then you started to breathe again! We were all so very relieved!"  
"Tristian...were you...did you call..."  
"Yes, I did. As soon as you hung up the phone I called 911, and went directly to your house. When I got there the ambulence had just started to Your grandparents didn't even know what had happened. The parametics took you to the hospital. They got the asprin out of your system, but they thought...they thought...oh Rory, I'm so glad you're alive!"  
"Why do you care so much?" she wondered out loud. He pulled away from her.  
"Because I love you." And he looked away. She reached out and pulled his face to hers. Looking into eachothers eyes she kissed him. There was so much feeling behind that. It woke her right up out of the depressed hole she had been in, even more than the talk with her mother had. She was fully awake.  
"I love you too Tristian. You saved my life. Thank you so much. I love you too." She said. He smiled and held her.  
"You're not going to leave me ever, ever again." He said.  
  
After Tristian left (he had stayed the entire night by her side, in an uncomfortable little chair next to the bed), Rory slowly stepped out of bed. She felt a little dizzy, but consitering what she had done to herself she expected it. She stepped quietly to the window and looked into the sky. The rainbow was still there, but now it was fading.   
"Thank you, mom." She said as the rainbow continued to dullen. "I always did love our mother-daughter talks." And as the rainbow dissapeared completely, a white dove flew by. She didnt wonder why there was a white dove when they didnt live anywhere near where she was, she knew it was her mother's way of saying "think nothing of it." Rory slipped back into her bed. She knew someday she'd see Lorelei again, and if she had to wait until it was her time, she knew she could.  
  
  
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That was my first Gilmore Girls fanfic, didya like it??? PLEEEEEEEASE read and write. :) thanks. and check out my other fanfics: The Last Date, A Fingerprints fanfic, Losing You, A Fingerprints fanfic, and Revenge Turned Upside Down, A Lizzie McGuire Fanfic. Thanks, bye!  
  
~*~Ashley~*~ 


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